Blurred scenes?

I don't think that's a good comparison. This movie isn't going to make much money either way so there was no use censoring anything if it was able to get an NC-17 rating, straight to DVD. Kill Bill was set to make millions upon millions at the box office and needed to allow an audience as wide as possible into the cinemas. Making that one scene black and white probably earned the film more than double what it would've if it had been NC-17, since many US cinemas don't show N-17 films, there are restrictions on advertings them and then you have the age factor as well.

Of course, a lot of European countries force cuts on US films that appeared uncut in US theaters (mainly due to violent content) to make certain ratings, but if we pointed that out, it'd make it harder to bash the US, so we'll just pretend that never, ever happens.

-Bad waves of paranoia. Madness. Fear and loathing.-

Yeah, I'm "sure" a condom company has denied rights along with a heroin company :D

If I remember correctly, there was a few glancing shots of couples getting heavilly intimate, at least I think that was what was going on, it was blurred out... And, it seemed to be that on several occasions paticular products in peoples hands were blurred out, maybe to hide Brand names or, possibly because those products and/or brands didnt actually exhist in 1978... But I could be completely wrong because, as usual, I was totally mashed whilst watching this movie...

I haven't seen the movie yet, will rent it soon. Filmmakers have to get permission for every product shown in their film, and likely the filmmakers couldn't secure the permission. They may have also feared a lawsuit if the context of the product placement is unflattering (for example, Coca Cola was reportedly furious that Oliver Stone used their famous Polar Bear animated commercial after some nasty violent scene in "Natural Born Killers").

As for blurred nudity, I've only seen that before in some Japanese movies, because Japanese law forbade showing frontal nudity on screen (aside from breasts). I've never heard of it being done in an American film before...likely it is an attempt to get the DVD into Blockbuster, which usually doesn't carry unrated material. It's ridiculous that a ratings system designed to "inform" parents has been perverted into a de facto censorship board, but that's what you get with the MPAA. I don't understand why more companies don't release both versions--NC-17 and the softer R versions, on their discs. In this way, the viewer could decide which version they could handle.